


Ave atque Vale

by hellkitty



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Community: angst_bingo, Epistolary, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 03:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>angst bingo 'character death'.  Tamsin says the only farewell that means anything to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ave atque Vale

Stacks,

I know you’ll forgive me the informality, Marshall Pentecost. It makes me feel good to remember the ‘good old days’.  Weren’t all that good, really, but strange how time changes things, yeah?

I’ve been writing this letter in my head for weeks, trying to get the words right. I’ll still probably mess them up: after drifting, well, words seem like trying to dance with logs. I’m not a letter writer, a desk driver. Neither are you, though, and I think I understand better than anyone how it feels to have to sit by and watch others take the risks, face the dangers. Neither of us are good at helplessness. It was what joined us, at the first, that we could finally do something, avenge Luna, save lives.  

I know you’re probably going to be angry that I’m writing. What an old-fashioned, quaint technology, the letter, right?  I know you’ll be angry I didn’t call, but, well, you have a life to lead, a future to face.  I don’t have much future left: the doctors try not to say anything beyond that pablum ‘chin up, lass’ talk, but I can tell. My body can tell.  It’s taken me an hour to write this, for fuck’s sake, like the pen weighs about ten kilos when I push it across the page.  All I’ve got is the past, and you, and I don’t want to drag you down.

I don’t want you to see me like this, honestly. It’s bad, Stacks, the chemo. In a way, I wish...I wish I’d died in Tango in Tokyo, except for what it would’ve done to you.  But at least I’d have gone out a hero, with honor. I’d go out fighting something big, not slowly fading, puking up water, looking at that array of pill cups on my morning tray like it’s a Herculean task just to imagine swallowing them all.

I think, and part of me hopes, that by the time you get this--by the time I can finish it, and it crawls through the bowels of the military postal service--I’ll be gone. So I might as well just say everything I want to say to you, yeah?

But then I think, there’s not much to say, really, that you don’t already know. I’ve given up being angry at the PPDC for pulling me. Part of it’s no energy; I simply can’t spare the emotion. Being sorry for myself is hard work, yeah?  But the other part is we knew what we signed on for.  We knew the odds, and goddammit, we beat them, time and again.  I go my chance to get the bastards back, for Luna, for all of us, and when you think how many people would like a shot at the Ks? I’m pretty bloody lucky. And I met my best, my dearest friend. (That’s you, Stacks).  

But it’s time, I think, to hang up the gloves.  I think of you every time I watch the news, every time I see a jaeger in action, those little glimpses from daredevil photographers.  I don’t know any of the pilots anymore, but I bet you do. They’re all strangers to me, a new generation, a new era, and it’s time for the old heros to step aside and let them pass, let them exceed our own limits. It’s breathtaking to watch, really, to see how far we’ve come, and I can, sometimes, see glimpses of a bright future for humanity.

And for you. You have your Mako, your beautiful little girl. Part of me always wanted a little girl, and I hope you don’t mind me saying I feel a bit like a mother to her, like I brought you together. Felix culpa, or something, probably a foolish story I tell myself to make something good come out of letting you down in Tango.  She’s your future, Stacker, tend her well.  If she cares for you half as much as I do, you will be a blessed man.  

I won’t be one of the big heros: I’m a washed up, hairless, grey stick of a woman now, who needs to eat food the colour and texture of wallpaste, and who can’t be touched without blossoming in bruises. I’m a frail thing, now, and sometimes it’s hard even for me to believe I once controlled one of those behemoths of steel and hope.  

But I know you’ll remember me, Stacker.  And really, when it comes to memory, there’s the pull of glory, but there’s a greater depth and meaning in knowing that one who knew you, loved you at your deepest, most intimate self, will mourn your loss. I’m sorry to put that burden on you, but I’ve come to think that one of the tasks of the survivors needs to be to remember all that’s been lost.

Fight on, Marshall Pentecost, for me, for your little girl, for all of us.

Tams


End file.
